


so enticing deep dark seas

by petragem



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 22:43:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7910440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petragem/pseuds/petragem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one with the roadtrip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so enticing deep dark seas

A few surprising things happen in the aftermath of saving the city from a ghost apocalypse:

one. Columbia calls.  Columbia offers Erin tenure.

She turns it down.

two. They don't have to pay for drinks.  Like, anywhere, ever.  Erin has never been the target of such outright good-natured goodwill and it is unsettling, at first, the staring and the cheering and the constant heroes' welcome, men and women alike falling over themselves to do favors for them, favors for her.  Erin relaxes into it.  Gets good at saying thank you.  

three. _I'd talk to you at an AA meeting._

"Was that--does Holtzmann have an alcohol problem?" she’d asked Abby.

"Oh sweetie," Abby said, a mixture of affection and pity.  "She's hitting on you.  Holtzmann is virtually always hitting on you."

Oh.   _Oh._

"Did you really not know?"

It makes sense, in retrospect.  The winking, the dancing in her direction, the way Holtzmann gives her first choice on all her weirdest coolest inventions.  

Slowly slowly, Erin notices things.  The curve of Holtz's waist, her breasts, how pink her mouth is, her tongue.  Wonders what it would be like to kiss her, to touch her, to press her up against her lab table, the one with the least amount of weapons and sporadic fire, and slide her hands up under her shirt, down her pants.  Wonders about the sounds she makes when she comes.

Her Kevin crush fades.  A Holtzmann crush--a Holtzmann crush replaces it.

\---

An unsurprising thing: there are still lots and lots of ghosts.

\---

The call comes in on a Tuesday: class four apparition in Washington.

"Heights?" Abby asks.  "Kev, buddy, did you forget the part about the Heights?"

"Nope," he answers, cheerfully.  "All they said was Washington!"

"Square Park?"

"Tavern?"

"Bridge?"

Patty stands in front of her makeshift library, stacks and stacks of books about New York, about history, about ghosts.  The mayor’s office still owes them shelves.  Abby rests her head in her hands. 

Holtzmann hops up onto Kevin's desk, pats him on his head.  Scrolls through his caller ID.  Erin is very distracted by her mouth.  By her hands.

"Two-five-three area code," Holtzmann says.  

State, Erin thinks.  They've got a ghost in Washington State.

Patty's eyes go wide, Abby sighs.  Holtzmann looks at Erin and grins, fast and loose.

"We are not going all the way to Washington State,” says Abby.  “DC, maybe could've swung it.  But State?  How are we going to get all our gear onto a plane?"

Erin paces, considering.  "But, think of the research possibilities.  Ghosts from a different lay line, different energy.”

Holtz watches Erin.  Grins.   ”Only a 42 hour drive to Tacoma.”

"Hell no thank you," says Patty.  "Someone's got to hold down the fort here anyway so I volunteer to be that person."

"I will gladly also be that person," Abby adds.  "Plus I don't like the idea any one of us being here without backup.  Or the idea of being in a car with unstable nuclear matter for several days, as much as I do trust you, Holtzy."

Holtzmann shrugs.  "No big."  Looks at Erin.  "It's me and you, Gilbert."

Erin laughs, nervously.  "Me and you.”

Holtz calls the number from Washington back.  "We'll be there in two days," she shouts into the phone.  Looks at Erin, sighs.  "We'll be there in possibly four or five days.  Speed limits and basic human sleep requirements, you know."

Four to five days there, four to five days back.  Erin thinks about blonde hair, piles of metal.  The smell of ozone and ghosts and Holtzmann's cucumber mint shampoo.

Everything staticky, golden, perfect.

\---

Holtz insists she only needs four hours to design and assemble the long-distance travel packs, more mobile proton pistols, lightweight containment units.  "Just gotta make sure our everything can stay stable enough to sustain a charge for a few weeks!  I'll be ready at 2am."

Erin opens her mouth, closes it.  Opens it again.  Says, "Let's say 7."

Packs her bags for Tacoma.  Listens to Holtzmann clanking around in her lab.  Tries to keep her heart from beating outside of her chest.

—-

"You realize you are NOT taking the new hearse, right?" Patty asks, next morning, early, Erin bleary-eyed and under-caffeinated.  Old jeans and her favorite MIT t-shirt.

"Yeah, we'll rent something," Erin answers, making a mental note: sedan, maybe small-ish SUV.  There's an Enterprise down the block.

Stumbles outside.

Holtz stands in front of a bright red mini van, stuffed to its actual gills.  "Ta da," she shouts, proudly.  "Found us a ride."

Erin stares at her, stunned.  “Holtzmann.  When do you sleep?"

"I don't, not really.  Give me your suitcase and I'll throw it in, it's uh, it's maybe best you don't touch or even look at anything behind the front seats."

They hug Patty goodbye, hug Abby.  

Holtz tosses the keys at Erin, shouts, "You can drive first!"  Hoists herself into the passenger seat, props her feet up on the dash, closes her eyes.  Is asleep before they even make it out of the Holland Tunnel.  

There are matching giant plastic 7-11 to go thermoses balanced carefully on the center console, too big for the cupholders.  Erin takes a sip of the one that looks creamier, and breathes.

\---

Holtzmann wakes up halfway through PA, blinks twice.  Frowns at the radio.  An audiobook Erin downloaded from the library, playing through her phone.  Something about a mysterious stranger in a small town, an unexplained death, and cats.

"Thought you didn't sleep.”

"Very occasionally."  Holtzmann squints at the road.  "When confronted with excessive sunlight and pretty girls."

Erin turns off the audiobook, flustered.  She's still not used to her, Holtz, her smile and her voice and her blustery charm.  She's still not sure if there's actual intent behind her words, sometimes.

Erin clears her throat.  "Do we have a plan of where we're aiming for?  Where we're sleeping.  Or like.  Are we just driving west?"

Holtz starts ticking off her fingers.  "Tonight?  Tonight we've got to make it to Indiana.  I know a person in South Bend who has some couches.  Then tomorrow we'll aim for one of the Dakotas?  I don't know anyone there but like, these babies--" she thumps their seats, "recline so all we have to do is pull over."

At Erin's probably horrified face: "Alriiiiiight.  We'll find a camp site?  I have a tent in the back?"

"Holtzmann!"

"That a no?"

Erin nods, feels a million years old.

"Okay, okay, we'll find a motel but what fun is that, honestly."

Erin breathes in, breathes out.  "And after that?”

“After that's Bozeman, in Montana, my house, I guess, my dad still lives there I'm p sure--"

"Holtz, what?  You're from Montana?  I always thought--"

Erin always thought that Holtzmann was--was from somewhere not Montana, to be honest, somewhere less wild, somewhere with less wide open sky, less bison.

Holtzmann shrugs.  “Yep.  Not the town with the inside-out skin people, obviously.“

“Obviously.”  Erin pauses.  “When’s the last time you saw your family?"

"It's just my dad mostly and--" another shrug.  Scuffs her boot against the car mat.  "It's been a couple years.”

Holtzmann waves her hands in front of her face, mutters something about her mom, about divorce, about moving away.

Erin tries to focus, tries to make her brain compute the words Holtz is saying, the not-quite sentences.  Catches ”But it’s okay.  I have you guys now.”

Erin nods, because, yes, of course, but also: “It’s okay to have both.”

Holtzmann looks at her, speculating.  Flicks the radio back on, says, "We can listen to your book if you want.  Driver's choice."

—-

Off the highway.  Bathroom break for Erin.  Snack acquisition break for Holtzmann.  Driver switch.  Back on the road.  Holtz shoving a CD into the center slot, plain silver, DAY 1 scrawled in black sharpie.  Eighties music blaring through the dash.  It plays through once, twice.  Holtz clicks the power button, bored.

"Should we check in with Patty and Abby?" Erin suggests.

Holtzmann nods, fast.  "I miss my children.  

"What, they're your children?  That doesn't--that doesn't even make sense.  If anything, they're the stabilizing force on our family and--"

Holtzmann sits up straighter.  ”I can be stable," she shoots back, indignant.  Loosens her grip on the wheel.  "I meant my tools and my toys."

"And by toys--" Erin falters.  "And by toys you mean low-grade nuclear weapons?"

"Yep."

“Okay."

\---

Erin believes it, weirdly, the stability, that she can be.  

_Loyal_ , Abby'd said.  

\---

South Bend, Holtzmann's person with the couches.  Also: a husband, baby, and the kindest eyes Erin’s ever seen.  Sarah greets them with two red solo cups full of beer and a houseful of people, “End of summer barbecue,” she explains, a cheerful wave of her hand.  Pulls Holtz into a tight hug, shakes Erin’s hand.  Leads them around the house, around the back deck, introducing Erin, reminding Holtz of people’s names.  The sun’s just dropping below the horizon.

A couple of kids chase a soccer ball out in the yard. “You look good,” Sarah murmurs to Holtz, and—she’s an ex, Erin realizes, she must be.  Sarah, whom Holtz seems to exclusively call Shiz, Holtz who seems utterly unfazed by the compliment.  Holtz and Shiz.  Erin’s heart sinks into her stomach.

She drinks her beer.  Makes polite conversation with a ChemE professor.  Finds an excuse to step away.  

Goes inside and splashes water on her face.

"Are you jealous?” Holtz asks Erin, low, right there in her face as she swings open the bathroom door.

“Jesus,” Erin says because she needs a minute, a person can’t just sneak up on someone like that, it shouldn’t be allowed, and anyway she _is_ jealous, and not in the mood to make this a joke like all of the one million other jokes and entendres and pickup lines Holtz throws her way and ‘’ _Yes,_ yes I am,” before she can stop herself.  Backpedals, “But we're colleagues and that’s highly inappropriate so I shouldn't be so--" 

Holtz's face shifts from surprised to delighted to determined.  She takes one, two steps fully into Erin’s space, slams her cup on the bathroom counter, and grabs Erin’s face and kiss her, quick and thorough, tongue and teeth and the zing of sugar from a bag of Swedish fish Erin watched her pawn off one of the kids out back.  Erin's hands flutter at her sides.  Holtz's hips press hers against the sink.

Holtzmann pulls back, sudden.  Winks, spins on her heel, grabs her drink and goes back to rejoin the party.

Erin, stunned, hand halfway to her mouth, frozen.  

Takes a minute, ( _Fuck,_ she thinks.   _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._  Follows her back outside.

Grabs a bottle of water from a cooler.  Watches Holtzmann flit from person to person, laughing, manning the grill, waving sparklers, toasting marshmallows.  Every couple minutes, she finds a reason to loop back to Erin, touches her arm, her shoulder, her hair.  Looks at her like she thinks Erin might tell her to get lost, like she might not want her this close, this much, this way.  Erin grabs her hand and holds on, after the twentieth time, Shiz just starting to corral her guests into their cars, partially so Holtz'll stop playing with fire, literally, partially because when she does, Holtz flushes, smiles, steps closer and tucks herself into Erin's side, continues jabbering away about some device Shiz's friend's wife is building, the pros and cons of aluminum versus copper.  Squeezes Erin's hand.

\---

"Is this what people mean when they call things man caves," Holtz whispers to Erin, hushed.  Awed.  Staring at the den, five couches, loveseats, recliners, all angled towards a massive tv.  "And if so can we make one at the firehouse."

Erin tosses a pillow onto the closest sofa, laughing.  It feels easy, whatever it is they're doing, whatever they're starting.  Lies down and pulls her sheet up to her chin.

"Night, Holtz."  

Holtzmann flops into her couch, buries her face in the pillow.  Somewhat muffled: "I like kissing you."

Erin blushes into the dark.  "Like kissing you, too.”  

—-

Up early in the morning, Erin rolling over with her alarm, stumbling into the kitchen, Shiz in the middle of sandwich-making ( _just in case you get hungry somewhere it's a pain to pull over_ ),Holtzmann bouncing the kid on her knees, cooing baby talk into its serious face.  Goggles pushed up on her forehead.  Tiny matching little kid goggles, pushed up on the baby's.  The entire room feels too bright, too much.  Erin wants to never leave.

Big hugs goodbye, gurgles from the kid.  Two miles down the road Holtz pulls over, puts the car in park.  Leans over, kisses Erin slow, lazy, all the time in the world.  Mumbles, "Wanted to do this earlier--yesterday--the day before that--" and slides a hand around the back of Erin's neck.

Erin rests her forehead against Holtzmann's, thinks of late nights, thinks of ferris wheels, thinks of making out in movie theaters.  Edges blurred, time moving too fast, too slow.

Says, tentatively, "Hi."

\---

Holtzmann in the driver's seat, no makeup, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, flying by.  Her day 2 playlist ( _it is a mixtape, Gilbert_ ), Erin laughing, _is this one of the Star Wars soundtracks?_ and being met with nothing but aggressive humming for forty-five minutes, and laughing, and laughing.

\---

"Sooooo how's it going?" Patty asks, dragging out the vowels, when they call for morning ghost check.

Holtz glances at Erin, takes a deep breath, and, stiltingly: "Physics is the study of--"

"Oh my god, we made out, a little bit," Erin cuts in.

Patty gasps, calls for Abby, yells: "Finally."

Holtz beams.

\---

Road snacks, their cooler of food.  Mixtapes ( _playlists_ ) for every day.  Beef jerky.  Pop tarts.  Their cooler of unregistered nuclear material.  Sticky-hot, hair plastered to the back of Erin's neck.  Holtzmann touching her every chance she gets, hand on her arm to point out a road sign, head on her shoulder waiting in the check out line at a McDonald’s.

Erin tries to stop smiling.  Can’t.

\---

Picnic blanket spread out, somewhere in Minnesota. Fast food containers stacked up.  Tiny electric votive candles glowing in the center.

"Is this--is this a date?” Erin asks.

Thinks about wasted time, thinks about what it means to be happy.

\---

"One bed or two?" the twenty-year-old at the motel counter asks, bored.

"One," Erin answers, tips of her ears turning pink.  Holtz throws her hands in the air, celebratory, tries to grab Erin's ass.

\---

"Haaaave you ever done this with a lady?  Do you have any diseases I need to know about?  Do you trust me when I say I don't have any diseases we need to know about?  How do you feel about dental dams?"

"Did--Holtz.  Did you pack a dental dam?"

She huffs, sheepish.  "No, but I did think about it and am more than happy to go procure whatever--"

"Oh my god, just kiss me."

So.  Holtzmann does.  Kisses all the way down her body, takes her time.  Mouth on her breast, her ribs, her clit.  Gasping.  Holtzmann fucks her with her tongue, steadying hand at Erin's hip.  She arches into it, Erin does, or tries to, anyway, and comes, and comes, and comes.  Holtzmann presses a sloppy kiss into Erin's thigh, as her breathing steadies, hair falling out, dishelved.  She is the most beautiful thing Erin's ever seen.  

Holtzmann muscles her way back up her body, drops her head next to Erin's on the grimy motel pillow.  Jittery.  Erin touches her hip, her waist, her back.  Her hand.

"What do you want?" she asks, softly.

"Stay here, just--" Holtz skims her fingers over the back of Erin’s fingers.  "Touch me?"

Erin feels something in her heart unspool, Holtz's wide uncertain eyes and a thousand miles behind them, surrounded by corn and cattle and star-filled skies, picnic blankets, Holtz's sweetly earnest face, her swaggery charm. 

She slides a hand down Holtz's body and watches her eyelashes flutter shut.

—-

Sunrise, South Dakota, Rapid City.  Wyoming.  

Call in to the firehouse, endure Kevin accidentally hanging up on them four times in a row.  Abby's teasing.  Patty's promise to email them the couple of things she's dug up on potential Tacoma ghosts.

\---

Flat tire just over the Montana border.  Holtz glancing at her nervously, as they pull things out of the trunk, try to dig out the spare.  Ten proton pistols of varying size.  Five containment canisters.  Two sleeping bags.  A grill.  Something that Erin assumes is a backup generator.  

Holtz jumps on the socket wrench to loosen the lug nuts.  Erin snaps a picture and to send to Abby and Patty, safety emoji, anxiety emoji.  Holtz in a crop top and suspenders, glasses dangling from one ear.

Two minutes later she gets a notification from the firehouse twitter account they let Kevin run.  Five ghosts and wrench emoji.

"At least he got the wrench part right," Erin mutters to herself.  "Your fan club's going to be beside themselves," Erin calls out to Holtz, louder, waving her phone, a helpless undertone she can't swallow down.

Holtz crinkles her nose, frowns.  "What fan club?"

"All of the women that follow you around?  At bars?  That flirt with you?"

Holtz runs a gloved hand through her hair, confused.  "Really?  But I only ever flirt back at you."

\---

"Does he know about me?  Wow, that sounds presumptuous, I just mean, does your dad know I'm coming too?"

"Sort of?  No."  Holtz chews her lower lip.

Erin waits.

"Yes?  To both things?"

"Or like.  Probably?  I haven't seen him in years but we do talk.  He keeps me updated on steel prices."  Then: "Just don't worry about it."

Erin worries about it.  

\---

He has a friendly face, Holtzmann's dad.  He calls Holtzmann Jilly ( _Jilly?_ Erin mouths at her, as Holtzmann shrugs.).  He has a cat named Georgia.  He looks just as flustered as Erin feels as Holtzmann paces around the house, not looking at either of them, not talking.  Surveying what's changed, maybe, or what hasn't.

\---

Erin in the guest room bed.  A door opening and closing in the dark.  The dip of the mattress, Holtz scooting close, tucking her head into Erin's neck.  

Erin fits her hands into the curve of Holtz’s spine, tries: "Are you okay?"

Holtzmann shakes her head, fidgets.  Glances a kiss off Erin's collarbone.  Says, "I don't want us to be like this just while we're away."  A pause.  "My mom lives in Omaha."

Erin pets up her back, rubs circles, hearts, stars.  Says, "Okay," and, "I'm sorry, and "I know."  

Listens to her breathing steady out.  Listens to her sleep.

—-

She's awake, Holtzmann is, when Erin opens her eyes the next morning, the chime of her alarm clock and smile lines crinkling at blue eyes.  

"Hey," Holtz says.  "Hey Erin."  She has a pillow crease across half of her face.  Her hands are very warm.  Nudges Erin with her foot under the covers, drops her voice: "Wanna fuck in the shower."

Erin laughs, in spite of herself, makes a noise like agreement somewhere in the back of her throat.  Of all the Holtzs she expected to wake up to, wriggling happy morning Holtz was not at the top of the list.  

"We can," Erin says.  Kisses the tip of her nose, kisses the dimple in her cheek, kisses the side of her mouth.  She feels braver in the mornings.  

"Or, if you wanted some quiet time with your dad before we have to leave, you two could have breakfast.  I can get a head start repacking the car." 

Holtz wrinkles her nose, considering.  

"Plus it's like.  Only ten hours to Tacoma," Erin adds, conversationally.  "If you're super tied to bathroom sex, I'm sure we can find a rest stop somewhere."

\---

Erin takes her time, getting her things together, getting Holtz's things together.  Waits until she hears the side door click, Holtz and her dad settling in on the porch, low murmur of voices. _I miss you, kiddo.  I wish you would come home more._  

Erin fills up a mug from the coffee pot, Bozeman High Academic All Star, refills their coolers with ice. Hauls their bags out to the car, weeds out the trash, food wrappers and empty soda cans tucked into every available surface, the floor.  Sets the GPS to Tacoma.

\---

Erin drives first.  Holtz rests her head on her knees, watches her.

"I worry that he's all alone here.  I worry that he's sad."

\---

The last ten hours go quickly.  A stop for gas in Missoula.

"Can I call you Jilly," Erin asks, just outside Spokane.

Holtzmann blushes pink.  "You can call me whatever you want."

_Jillian_ , Erin thinks.  "Okay."

At the Columbia River they pull over, switch drivers.  Make out for ten lazy minutes on the side of Highway 90, Erin pinned between the sun-warmed metal car and Jillian, soft and humming.  A hand down Jillian’s pants, underwear shoved low.

—-

They make it to Tacoma.  They get their ghosts.  

Erin pulls off her slime-soaked jumpsuit, afterwards.  Wrings globs of ectoplasm out of her hair.  

Jillian saunters back to the van, still-smoking containment unit and envelope full of cash in her hand.  "Babe, we made bank."

Erin raises an eyebrow.

"What, too soon for pet names?  You call me Jillian now!  That's basically the same thing."

"You have a point."

"Hey Gilbert," Jillian says, closer all of a sudden, serious.  Hands on Erin's cheeks.  “It’s important—before we go, before we go back home. Do you wanna be my girlfriend.  I mean, I mean wait!  Can I be your girlfriend?"

Erin feels herself tearing up and she doesn't mean to, she's faced down ghosts and tenure rejection, public ridicule.  Years of whispers, teasing.  It’s just the slime, maybe. The slime and Jillian’s sweetly earnest face. 

"We'd be good, I'd be so good, I promise," Jillian continues.  "Take you on a real date, that restaurant with the twinkly lights you love.  Bring you flowers.  Make you the snazziest ghost collection prototypes."

Erin sniffles.  Jillian wipes the snot from her nose with her thumb, patient.  

"You already do that."

"I know," Jillian answers, proud.  "It was part of my flirting strategy.”

"You had a flirting strategy?"

Jillian shrugs.  "Duh.  You're like super hot."

Erin kisses her, because kissing is easier than declarations and she is not good at being brave in the light, not good at hearts on sleeves.

"Could wear my paint splatter overalls less and try to not set as many things on fire and--"  

Jillian frowns, falters.  Her voice sounds very small.

Erin shakes her head, certain, says: "Paint splatter pants the same amount.  Or more, if you want to.  Same with the fire, unless the thing is you because when you set yourself on fire and I get nervous I would really prefer if you did not do that, quite as much, and--"  

Erin cuts herself off.  Looks at Jillian.  Smiles, wide and loose, puts her hands on Holtz’s.  Nudges the side of her leg with her knee. Feels something in her chest crack wide open.  "Hey Jillian.  Can I be your girlfriend?"

"Ghost girlfriend."

"Let's just say regular girlfriend."

Jillian nods, fast.  "Mmmmkay."

\---

Dancing in the aisles of a gas station, DeBarge on the radio and Jillian's hand tucked in hers.  Scars and burn marks, the curve of Jillian's breast, an entire body to learn.  Jillian's tongue on Erin's skin. 

They take their time getting home.   


End file.
